


I Need You, You Don’t Need Me

by dandelionandburdock



Series: I Need You, You Don't Need Me [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Louis Tomlinson/Niall Horan friendship, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-11-14
Updated: 2012-11-14
Packaged: 2017-11-18 16:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/563028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dandelionandburdock/pseuds/dandelionandburdock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis is a creative student and aspiring writer, who has a big crush on his Creative Writing classmate Zayn Malik. Problem №1, he really wants him. Problem №2, the usually chatty and witty Louis can’t really form an intelligent sentence in front of Zayn. Problem №3, he should give him up - it’s hopeless -but he isn’t ready yet. Louis gives himself one last try - hopefully, with his amazing new plan and quite a bit of help from his friends, he’ll succeed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be published after having been completed and as a one-shot. I’m not very good at writing non-chaptered stories in general, so I decided to post this one on parts as well. I hope you’ll like it.

  


>   
>  _Love isn’t supposed to be like that. It’s supposed to lift you up, not crush you to the ground. It’s supposed to make you feel light on your feet instead of sucking the air out of you. It’s supposed to be days of smiles and laughter, not nights of tears and heart break._   
>  _It’s supposed to be you and me, but there’s only me._   
> 

  
Louis looked at the few lines he had just written. Okay, that was a bit too melodramatic. But he had had a crush on Zayn Malik – the gorgeous guy from his Creative Writing classes – ever since the first time he saw his amazing warm brown eyes, which was two months ago, their first class together. Sadly, he had never talked to him, except that one time, when he asked him if he had an extra pencil (even that was accidental – Louis had forgotten his own).

It was hopeless and Louis wasn’t even exaggerating: they had different classes – except for Creative Writing – they had different group of friends (Zayn had his super talented, super charming friends, and Louis had his super talented, but not-as-charming-as-they-wished friends), they visited different places and went to different parties. Even their friendship seemed impossible as Zayn went as the “Tall, Dark and Handsome” type of guy, very mysterious and philosophical, while Louis was very… outspoken, so to speak (which meant he was loud as fuck and rarely ever bothered to shut up); Zayn was deep metaphorical poems and Louis was witty first-person-POV prose.

Louis was pretty much desperate. Which meant he started writing melodramatic short stories that made him sound like an over-obsessed stalker on the verge of committing suicide due to his unrequited love. To be honest, he didn’t really know what else to do except to pretend that there was a more significant, more interesting reason for the two of them not being together, except for his inability of attracting Zayn’s attention.

He looked back at the notebook that he used for writing down ideas. When he thought about it, the few sentences weren’t exactly not-true. Love wasn’t supposed to be unrequited: the other one was supposed to detect your booming hormones and have his booming hormones react to them. And Louis was pretty sure he had read several literature pieces that used the exact same words: l _ove lifts you up, love makes you feel like you’re flying_. But he couldn’t help feeling as if someone had knocked him down on the floor every time the realization how impossible dating Zayn was, hit him after long hours of daydreaming about him. Every sight of him _did_ take Louis’ breath away but in an unpleasant way – quite the opposite of what novels said. He was hungry for air, he was hungry to breathe – how else could he express his feeling if not using the air in his lungs to speak the words out?

Well, the part with the days-and-nights contrast wasn’t true either – Louis couldn’t remember crying himself to sleep or something like that. What he could remember, though, was laughing to tears; laughing at himself, at his crush, at the way he behaved, as if wasn’t him crushing on Zayn but one of his sisters.

The last part was very much true. For a relationship, whether it was love or not, it took two. And there was no “me and you”, there was no “Louis and Zayn” – there was only Louis Tomlinson, alone in his room, on the verge of writing dreadful love songs. _“Well, at least Niall will have some decent material to play on his guitar.”_

Louis sighed. He had done it again, wrote himself in a fucking Nick Sparks’ book. He should’ve stopped with that – it was really unhealthy.

Maybe, he thought, he needed help. Yeah, that wasn’t a bad idea. He could ask his friends about some advice how to deal with this.

Yes, yes, yes. He should totally do that. Louis was pretty sure they were sick of him being so head over heels with Zayn and would be glad to help.

But… this meant letting go of the idea of him and Zayn together, right? Was he really ready to do that?

No, no, no. That would be a _terrible_ mistake. It was stupid, but crushing on Zayn had kind of become a part of him. What would it be like, living without this again?

Louis decided he couldn’t let go. But he couldn’t continue like that either.

~.-.~

> _Dear sober and smart part of me,_
> 
> _Let’s make a deal. We’re undeniably stuck with each other for a life time so let’s make things a bit easier._
> 
> _I understand that, in order to live a normal life, I have to get over the fact that me and Zayn can never be (probably). I also understand the trouble my stupidity has been causing you. The problem is that I just can’t stop: I can’t stop thinking of him, of what he’s said or wrote; I can’t stop writing about him; I can’t stop glorifying him. Both of us can see how bad this is. And both of us, you and me, know that I won’t stop until someone **makes** me._
> 
> _So here’s what I suggest. One more try, one last try. If I get him – I get him. If I don’t – well, I’ll have to pick myself up and go on with my life._
> 
> _This time, though, I’ll actually try, I’ll actually do something. Well, to be honest, I’ll do **anything** – from the basic, simplest things to the most desperate measures. Including asking my friends for help. There’s no deadline, not in the real sense of the word: it will be over when Zayn actually says “no” to me, or when our paths split. And that’s it._
> 
> _I don’t care what you think about it. It’s final._
> 
> _Louis._

~.-.~

Louis wasn’t exactly the most organized person – basically, the only plans he had ever made were the outlines of his short stories and even they were mere scribbles. This time, though, he decided the whole situation was way too serious for him to go lightly on it. So, he spent the whole weekend planning, scheming, and re-planning, in order to insure the success of what might’ve turned out to be the mission set for his late teen years. He even made a table with the positive and negative qualities of his friends and what advice he could expect from them, based on it.

He was so serious about this that he even had put off the weekly Saturday art night with his friends (it was the dorkiest thing ever, really: they got together at the local pool (Louis worked part-time there and had copied the key, just in case) and each one of them presented something they had written/composed/drawn over the week while the others laughed at them, making jokes about the content of said piece of art, and after that they had a regular pool party). His family sensed that there was something going on but didn’t ask about it, trying to understand him and calling it a one-weekend thing.

~.-.~

His friends and family interrupted him only twice. The first time was when his mother came in to bring him some pamphlets she had picked up from the local book store.

“Is this something for school, hun?”

“No, no…” Louis answered absently. “It’s more of a… side project.”

“Seems pretty important.”

“Yeah, yeah… it is.” Louis didn’t even lift his eyes from the paper he was scribbling on.

“So… Can I help you with something? Do you want anything?”

“No, no, it’s all okay.”

His mother sighed.

“I’ll leave these here.” Louis didn’t answer anything. “These are some pamphlets about a competition. The prize is a scholarship for some art program – I don’t know, I don’t really understand much. You can look at it and try if you want. If you’re not preoccupied with this side project.”

“Okay, I’ll look into it,” Louis promised without having any actual intend of doing so.

~.-.~

The second time was when Liam and Niall came over to get the key for the pool. Louis didn’t really want them to go in his room as he hadn’t decided yet whether he wanted to share his plan with his friends or not, so the moment he heard his mother opening the door and greeting his friends, he grabbed the key and rushed down the stairs.

“Here’s the key!” he almost threw it at Niall (who almost dropped it, caught by surprise), and turned around with the clear intend of going back in his room. “Have fun and make sure to give it back to me!”

“O-okay,” Niall answered, blinking at the key in his hand.

“You all right, mate?” Liam asked, surprised by Louis’ behavior – usually he would’ve dropped some witty comment about how the night would be boring without him.

“Tip-top!” Louis replied quickly and turned back at them; it was quite obvious, though, that he was in a hurry to leave. “I’m just busy with… with this competition. It has a great prize. A scholarship – can you imagine?!”

“That sounds kind of big,” Liam nodded, noting this as a legitimate reason for their friend to stay at home.

“It is! But it has a short deadline. So, I’d better get going.” Louis smiled at them. “Have fun. And tell Harry to stop trying to sing Adele – it’s not really his thing.”

As Louis made his way up the stairs, he heard Niall ask Liam, deeply confused, “Did he say _tip-top_?”

~.-.~

  
Louis finished planning in the late afternoon on Sunday. To be honest, he was quite proud of the work he had done – it was probably the first time he had ever put so much effort into something. Of course, if it all went okay and he actually started dating Zayn, he’d have to burn everything, but it still would be worth all the trouble.

The first thing he did after he was done was to call his friends. He had decided to tell them what he was up to, thinking that that this way their help would be more efficient. Plus, he really, _really_ wanted to brag about the work he had done – all the charts, and tables, and lists with different bullet points. Or, to be honest, he missed talking at all – he’d been so quiet for the whole weekend that he didn’t even feel like himself.

It took them only two hours to gather which was quite fast for them – a band of absent-minded artists whose worst nightmare were deadlines and set hours.

“Glad to see your face, mate!” Liam, who arrived first, greeted Louis with a hug and a pat on the back upon entering his room. “Actually, glad to _hear your voice_. The last thing I heard you say was “tip-top”!”

“I-I haven’t said that!”

“Yes, you fucking did!” Niall’s voice came from behind Liam. “And I don’t know whether this or your silence was more disturbing.”

“You’re exaggerating.” That was Louis’ poor attempt for defense. “Plus, I’ve told you – I have a short story to write.”

“Is this why you called us here, to read it to us?”

Louis looked at girl behind the two boys.

“Hello, Danielle. Nice to see you. You came to judge me too?”

“No. I’m just curious why I can’t spend Sunday night with my boyfriend without all of you being around.” The girl replied sliding her hand into Liam’s. “Although, if this is about something you wrote, I’ll be doing _a lot_ of judging. So, tell us, is it?”

“You’re not asking the right question, Dani,” their curly friend Harry came in, leading two other boys, their friends Ed and Josh, behind him. “And the right question is why the fuck this couldn’t wait until tomorrow?”

“Because it’s important, _Harold_. And it’s not about the competition.” Louis looked at the strange group that had gathered; _six_ , he counted, they were all here. “Now, could everyone, please, sit down and let me explain.”

For no apparent reason, all of Louis’ friends decided to sit on the bed – he was quite surprised that they managed to squeeze in, even if Dani sat in Liam’s lap, his hands resting around her waist. (For the same not-as-apparent-as-Louis-wished reason Niall tried to sit into Harry’s lap, but changed his decision in the last minute and just sat between him and Liam instead.)

“So…” Louis started. “As all of you know, I have a crush on Zayn (a group sigh), and I’m pretty sure all of you are getting tired of this (a couple of _yes_ ’s and _right about time mate_ ’s). Given all of this, I came to the conclusion that this… issue should be dealt with once and for all.”

“Are you giving up on Zayn?” Niall asked.

“Yes and no.” Louis saw his friends’ puzzled looks and hurried to explain. “Look, I have a plan.”

“Like in some romcom?” It seemed that Niall was going to be the speaker of the group tonight.

“Not _exactly_.” Louis licked his lower lip, like he always did when he was nervous or was about to read aloud (pretty much the same thing, really).

The group left an hour later, trying to make sense of what Louis’ had just told them. _Was he serious?_

(They really loved the charts thought.)

~.-.~

  
Louis’ plan looked a lot like an algorithm – if this happens, do that, if it doesn’t happen, do something else; step 1, step 2, etc. And in the basis of it all was Niall. Niall, who had never been very popular with the girls, although he had gorgeous dreamy blue eyes that actually sparkled all the time, was extremely pretty, and played the guitar like no other. Quite unexpectedly, he also gave the best advice when it came to any of their band of friends’ love life.

So, asking Niall was playing safe. Louis really needed that “safe” – he wanted to make sure he could call himself at least an acquaintance of Zayn’s.

The two had decided to meet at the café near the pool on Monday right after Louis’ shift was over to talk about what actions to take. Louis was all in a flutter ever since everyone had agreed to help him so when he was finally free to go, he rushed out of the pool center and straight into the coffee shop without saying any goodbyes or hellos to anyone, although he knew pretty much everyone who worked at the area.

Niall, on the other hand, didn’t seem to be so excited about their appointment and was 30 minutes late for it. (It might have only been his usual self, though – anyway, Louis wasn’t very happy about it. Only the fact that he was there to help him and Louis’ own agitation stopped the Zayn’s boyfriend wannabe from getting pissed at his friend.)

When the two finally sat down, they started discussing Louis’ options for making the acquaintance of Zayn.

The first thing Niall taught Louis was that you _don’t_ go up to your crush and introduce yourself if you don’t want them to specifically know that you’ve fallen for them.

“But I _want_ him to know!” Louis protested.

“You think you do, but you don’t really. I mean, just picture it! ( _“Close your eyes, you idiot – and then picture it!” – “Niall, this is stupid.” – “No, it’s not. I said close your eyes!” – “Ugh, okay.”_ ) Some unknown guy comes to you with some lame excuse to t–

“Is he cute?”

“W– What?”

“Is he cute? I mean, am _I_ cute? Because, obviously, I’m the unknown guy… Do you find me attractive?”

“He – and by this I mean _you_ – is too witty for his own good. Now shut up and listen. So…

>   
>  This guy comes to you and chats you up. It’s a simple conversation, really. You talk about how you’re together in Creative Writing class and how he was really impressed with you last philosophical poem.
> 
> “I feel like I could really relate to it!” he says. “I’ve been through that; actually, I think everyone goes through it at some point in life. It’s amazing how you’ve managed to capture it, how you’ve found the right words!”
> 
> You nod and thank him with a smile. The guy is obviously trying too hard; he wants to impress you just as much as your work– no, you have impressed him. You’re not stupid, you can see what he’s aiming for. But you decide not to go hard on him – he seems like a nice lad after all.
> 
> “I’m Louis, by the way,” he finally introduces himself and extends his hand towards you.
> 
> “Zayn,” you take his hand and shake it lightly. The gesture lasts no more than several seconds – just as long as it’s necessary, as long as accepted. But as you let go of his hand, you can see his fingers hanging in the air, waiting for yours to come back to them. You both stare at them until it becomes too awkward and the guy – Louis – folds them (it seems as if against his own will), and crosses his arms on his chest. Suddenly, he seems a lot less confident than he was minutes ago.
> 
> “Hm, nice to meet you, Zayn,” he says finally not daring to look up, blushing.
> 
> “Nice to meet you, too, Louis,” you try to make him feel a bit better. He’s attracted to you, you can see that, and you understand what he must be going through. But you’d better cut it fast and clean – you don’t need that bloke around right now. He’s cute, sure ( _“A-ha! I knew it! You think I’m cute!” – “Shut up, Louis!”_ ), but you’re not attracted to him or anything. And you don’t really feel like starting a relationship right now. Yeah, stopping it now would be better – you should take pity on the guy.
> 
> If he has the courage not to leave now, of course.
> 
> “Hey, I was wondering… My short story,” he speaks up. _Oh, fuck,_ you think. _Now I have to cut him off._ “The one that we have to write for next week, based on the list of words. I’ve already written it and,” he pauses. He almost runs together the next few words. “I need a beta. Would you like to help?” He looks at you filled with hope.
> 
> “I– I’m sorry but I can’t,” you answer and see his face sink. “I haven’t even started mine yet. And I don’t want to be influenced by someone else’s work. I hope you understand that.”
> 
> “Yeah,” he looks down for a second and bites his lip. Then looks back at you – he has an idea; you obviously haven’t made yourself clear enough. “We can work on it together then. Later, I mean. I can be your beta and you – mine.” ( _“These are the most romantic words I have ever heard you say, Niall. Is this how you hit on girls?” – “I won’t even cuss at you.”_ )
> 
> “Well, I don’t know. I’d rather work alone.”
> 
> “Then–“
> 
> “Look, mate,” you’re already tired of subtlety. “This is not going to work. I’m not interested. Let’s not make this more awkward than it already is, shall we?”
> 
> And with that you walk away.

  
“Wow, Niall, don’t get my hopes so high, mate,” Louis commented. “You should’ve taken the Creative Writing classes instead of me.”

“I’m just being realistic,” Niall shrugged. Well, that was his point of view.

“No, you’re not. I’m _nothing_ like that.”

“Yes, you are. Especially around Zayn. I mean, you have so much swag and then, suddenly, this guy shows up on the other end of the parking lot and it’s like you forget how to walk. It’s really… impressing.”

“Okay. First, thank you – you’re obviously fascinated with me; I hope you’re not trying to ruin my relationship with Zayn before it has even started because you’re in love with me or something.” Niall grimaced at this but let Louis continue. “Second, again, I’m not like that. I never lose my swag. _Swag masta from Doncasta_ , remember?”

“I’ll pretend I haven’t heard that.”

“As you wish, doesn’t make it less true.”

“Anyway, not the point of our conversation.”

“Look, Niall. It’s all going to be okay. No need to worry. I’ll just go to him and talk to him, introduce myself. I won’t say anything about his or mine writing, although, you have to know, he really is talented and speaks up for a generation, even if said generation doesn’t know that yet.”

“No, Louis, it’s not going to be okay. Not if you do it this way. I told you, you shouldn’t introduce yourself _by yourself._ ” Niall sighed. He stopped his explanation here because he was sure Louis would interrupt him anyway.

“And what do _you_ suggest I do?” Louis’ voice got higher – this meant he was getting irritated. “How am I supposed to get to know someone without introducing myself?”

“Well, you let other people do it for you.” Niall shrugged as if this was obvious.

“Mutual friends, for example. Let them introduce you to each other; let them throw in a good word for you. Let them fascinate him with you before you two have even met.”

Louis nodded. “That could work,” and then went back to his bitchy, I’m-not-going-to-listen-to-you-even-though-I’ve-schemed-this-whole-weekend attitude, “if we actually had any mutual friends.” He sighed. “He’s popular, you know, one of the cool kids. Our tables aren’t even in the same area of the cafeteria. Plus, he’s surrounded by cheerleaders and all those perfect omnipotent girls and guys that don’t invite us to their parties because we’re talented only for less than three things. I mean, it’s not like we interact enough to ask… to ask for such a favor.”

“Well, I was actually thinking about asking Cher.”

Louis grimaced at this suggestion. He was under the impression that the girl in question knew little of secrecy and subtlety. Zayn was more unlikely to find out about Louis’ crush if Louis himself went and tried to talk to him.

He voiced his doubts.

“The trick is to ask her in the proper way,” Niall explained.

“There is an improper way of asking someone to keep their mouth shut?”

Niall leaned over the table, closer to Louis (who did the same instinctively), as if he was going to reveal some big secret. “Cher is very curious, right?” Louis nodded. “She likes to meddle into people’s lives.” Louis nodded again; he was starting to get Niall’s idea. “So, we let her meddle into _yours_. We give her enough information to get her interested – simple stuff, like how you’d like to meet Zayn, how you’d like to go on a date with him. Something to tell her there’s potential for such relationship – and the whole game _before_ that – to be intriguing.”

Louis frowned. “I don’t like that you’re turning my life into a TV show, a free one at that.”

“I don’t think you should worry about that.” Niall shrugged. “We’ve been watching the _Louis’ unrequited love for Zayn_ show for quite some time now. It’s time for some character development.”

Louis looked him straight in the eyes, all serious, and then suddenly started laughing. “I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What?” Niall asked, grinning in response of Louis’ laugh.

“The Blair-Waldorf-ness.”

~.-.~

 


	2. Chapter 2

  


 

Louis thought that Niall’s plan was easier said than done and with every second after they had parted he was getting more and more convinced of that. He was slowly falling back into the same desperation in which he had spent the days before coming up with his “ingenious plan”. Worst part was that he didn’t really get to see any of his friends until lunch, which gave his imagination the opportunity to go absolutely wild and create over thousand scenarios of failure.

Things got even worse when Niall didn’t show up at lunch, but Louis decided to act all calm and collected instead of expressing how freaked out he actually was. He didn’t even ask where Niall was, nor did the rest of his friends.

By the end of school he was going seriously crazy. To be honest, he didn’t really understand why he felt _that_ anxious about it. He only knew that he was very agitated both about the possibility that Niall had succeeded and that he hadn’t.

Man, he had his hopes so high. And in the morning he had them absolutely destroyed by his own imagination. And by lunch he had slowly started regaining them, convincing himself that everything was OK, while trying to convince the others. Right now, as he stood in front of the school gates, waiting for Niall (who hopefully would show up), he wasn’t sure how he felt.

Louis just had this feeling that somehow his own destiny was being decided right now.

He rolled his eyes at that realization. He was getting a bit over-dramatic about it again.

Maybe he should just chill, he thought. Stop making such a big deal out of it (even though he had promised to himself that this was his last try of getting Zayn and that he would do anything to achieve that). Maybe that was what was so wrong about his approach – he was always so agitated that he couldn’t really think straight.

Which led him to the question: were any of his decisions actually adequate?

Louis was just beginning to sink in frustration, created by his own stupidity (or philosophical ingeniousness – depends on one’s point of view), when he noticed Cher passing by him. Well, _noticed_ was quite a weak description for her storming by him, grabbing him by the arm, and dragging him after her.

“Get in, loser,” she said, not even looking at him.

Even though quite bewildered, Louis managed to ask, “W-what’s happening?” And then added, his wittiness slowly taking over, “And why the _Mean Girls_ quote? Are we going shopping? You don’t even have a car!”

“Do you _ever_ shut up? Many say you don’t. It’s almost like a legend going around the less popular part of the school.” She kept on dragging him in an unknown direction without actually looking at him.

“Well, no, not really.” Strange enough, Louis found this whole conversation quite amusing. This was totally the outcome of Niall having talked to Cher and Louis had a good feeling about it, no matter how absurd this whole situation seemed. “But same goes for you. I know you never stop talking. And unlike you, I don’t need to go around and ask – I’ve seen you. I’m quite observant, too, you know.”

“Funny. I thought you were “observing” _Zayn_ , not _me_.” She finally stopped and turned to face him (he almost tripped over her in surprise of her sudden stop). “Are you crushing on me, too, Tomlinson?”

On her face was no malice or anger, just a playful smirk, a bit of a challenge. Not the sexual put-me-on-the-floor type of challenge, but the one that someone expresses when they have met their matching opponent. And well, given that Louis’s face had the same expression, maybe the two of them weren’t so different after all.

Maybe Niall’s idea wasn’t so crazy.

“You wish, _Lloyd_.”

Louis and Cher stared at each other for several seconds, measuring one another (from physical point of view, Cher was a bit shorter than Louis; from spiritual – it definitely didn’t feel like it). When they decided that the previous exchange was good enough of a proof that the other one was deserving of participation in this whole plan, they both nodded almost unnoticeably.

“So now that we’ve established a relationship where we conveniently call each other by our surnames, shall we get on the question?” Well, after all, that was what Louis was interested in.

“Not so fast, lover boy. I have to get to know you first.”

Louis raised his eyebrow.

“That was my deal with that small blonde one.”

“Niall?”

“Yeah, something like that.”

“Yeah, I think it’s Niall,” Louis said as if he had really wondered about the name of his actual best friend.

Silence settled in between them again and the eye-measuring started anew. Without lifting his eyes from Cher, Louis asked, “So… what you and “that small blonde one” (he made air quotation marks) have talked about? From what I see, your deal with him is very different from _my_ deal with him.”

“First of all,” Cher crossed her arms in front of her chest and lifted her chin up, “ _your_ deal doesn’t really matter. _You_ need my help so you’re going to play by _my_ rules.”

Louis frowned. He definitely didn’t like being told what to do. God, he didn’t even listen to his teachers (well, OK, who did? But no-one disobeyed them the way Louis dared to.) It wasn’t because he was a rebel by heart; he just couldn’t put up with anyone’s shit nor did he have any desire to. If he thought that something was pointless, he didn’t do it. If he thought he wouldn’t like doing something, he didn’t do it either.

This really sounded like something he wouldn’t like.

“Second,” Cher continued, pretending that she hadn’t noticed Louis’s disapproval of this whole situation. “Zayn is my friend, and believe it or not, I care about him. And I care who he’s dating. And even if he doesn’t end up dating you, which, no offense, but is very likely, I don’t want to have you around him. Like some obsessed stalker. Are we clear?”

“OK. I will really try not to be offended by all of what you said – you’d better be thankful I’m not easy to offend. For your future reference, though, I’d like to note that there aren’t any nonobsessed stalkers – “obsessed” is kind of in the definition of the word. But,” Louis paused and raised a finger for Cher to wait as she was already preparing to say something. “But I guess I get what you’re saying. I… I think I would do the same for my friends. If they were in such a mess. So yeah. Yeah, we’re clear.”

“Good,” the girl nodded. “Let’s go then.”

She spun on her heels and continued walking in the original direction she was dragging Louis in, not caring if he followed her or if he didn’t. Honestly, both of them knew that he’d follow – he was way too deep in this.

Even though that, Louis’s natural need to know everything took over and he shouted behind her, “Where to?”

She didn’t answer. Louis, of course, after swearing quietly to himself, followed.

 

~.-.~

 

They ended up in a bookstore, much to Louis’s surprise (he never took Cher for the reading type, to be honest). OK, it was actually _the_ bookstore as there was only one in town and it was pretty much Louis’s favourite place. He knew, of course, that it was one of Zayn’s top hang out places, too, as he has seen him here quite a lot. One might think that this would be a perfect opportunity to get to know someone, especially if you were loud and rarely ever shy. Well, they would be wrong.

Louis never worked up the confidence to talk to Zayn about books. He needn’t even ask for his name – he could’ve said, “Good choice of book. I like the author very much.” and attract his attention with a good, or at least, similar taste of literature. But Louis couldn’t do that, even though he had often talked to random strangers in the bookstore about the books they were looking into. In his mind, as usual, there were thousand scenarios, many of which included Zayn hating the book or the author and just checking it out the way people from the Internet go and check out _50 Shades of Grey_ – to make fun of it, shake their head in pity for future generations and then put the book back on its place with disgust written on their face.

He never said in the same area of the bookstore as Zayn, either, because he knew that he wouldn’t notice him anyway. The few times he had observed Zayn from behind the shelves (well, maybe he did resemble a stalker a bit) he knew how deep he sank into the book when he was reading. Louis found something really beautiful in that – not only in Zayn, but in general – in the way how when people read and are really, _really_ into the book, they just shut the world outside. They don’t care about other people and they don’t watch out for their expressions; they are completely honest, stripped off of all masks and pretences. The emotions they showed while reading, Louis believed, were the most genuine emotions anyone was capable of.

What made Zayn particularly beautiful was the fact that the reading him wasn’t very different from the regular him that Louis saw at school or around town. Thoughtful, maybe a bit melancholic, shut behind his warm brown eyes, inside a mysterious world, that many girls and boys would pay with their souls to get into. His smile was different, though. Louis suspected that he smiled when he saw a verse he really liked (because Louis knew he was mainly reading poetry). It wasn’t a big smile, but a very subtle one, a bit of a small smirk that said “Very well. I wish I’ve thought of that.”

He absolutely adored that.

Louis didn’t ask what they were doing here, once he got out of his thoughts. He got Cher’s message from earlier – he didn’t speak and he just waited for her to give him directions. But Louis was Louis so he couldn’t stay quiet forever.

“So… we are here,” he said and looked around. “A lovely place with a lovely staff.”

“Yes, I know. My cousins own it.”

Well, now that was the surprise of the day.

But to be honest, Louis didn’t really know much about Cher’s family – he just never really cared. Plus he had never seen her around. And he was pretty sure the owners’ last name wasn’t Lloyd. How could’ve he guessed?

“That’s great,” was all he answered as he wasn’t sure if a longer response wouldn’t get him banned from the place.

Then he waited for her explanation. She seemed to like torturing him by leaving him in the dark but she couldn’t waste her whole day here, could she?

Even if Cher actually knew anyone from the staff at all, she didn’t bother greeting them. She headed straight for the second floor where, Louis knew, the reading sofas were (well, walking without looking at anyone or paying attention to “peasants” was her usual way of moving around; if it wasn’t Louis’s natural instinct _not_ to assume that people all fell into some kind of a cliché, he would’ve said that it was just the way high school queen bees walked).

When they reached the only double sofa, Cher just dropped on it. She looked up at Louis who stepped from one foot to another, feeling kind of uncomfortable, and tapped the place next to her. He obediently sat on it and noted, “This feels like an interview for a spot in a posh Wall Street firm.”

“Don’t make it sound as if I’m selling Zayn to you,” Cher commented with an even voice. “Because I’m not, okay?”

“You are taking care of him, I know. You already said that,” Louis shrugged. It never felt like she was _selling_ Zayn to him, but all of this _did_ feel like an awkward job interview. And it sort of was. Cher was interviewing Louis to see if he was worthy of Zayn.

“OK. So now to the task at hand.” Cher clapped with her hands, the bracelets on her hands jingling like chimes.

Louis was about to start jumping from anticipation but instead of showing it, he just bit his lip.

“It’s simple. There are three stages.” Cher raised her finger to stop Louis from interrupting her. “I’m not telling you anything besides what you need to know and when you need to know it.”

“Ooookay?” This sounded more and more absurd with every passing minute. What was actually happening? Did he accidently fall in a reality show or something? (This reminded him of Niall’s _Louis’ unrequited love for Zayn_ show which, he though, was now turning into _Louis was an idiot to listen to his friends; now he’s trying to guess what the fuck is happening to him_ show. He didn’t think he was getting an Emmy.)

“So. First of all, I need to ask you a few questions. Before you start laughing and commenting about this becoming an actual interview, I’ll explain it to you: I just want to know more about you. For every question I ask you and for every answer, I’ll give you Zayn’s answer–“

“What? You have interviewed him, too?”

“Of course _not_ , don’t be stupid. I actually know him – I don’t even have to ask. Please.” Cher rolled her eyes. “Anyway, the point of this is to help both me and you. You’ll get to know more about Zayn and also, you’ll get to see how much the two of you have in common. Based on that, I’ll think about your compatibility. You might want to date someone only for their looks – which, with Zayn, is quite understandable – but I know for a fact that he doesn’t.”

“I’m not that shallow,” Louis murmured but this actually got him thinking. He knew _some_ stuff about Zayn, stuff he would consider as “having in common”, and he found all his brooding image quite attractive, but what made the butterflies in his stomach flutter, were Zayn’s looks. The idea that his thin nice finger might caress his skin, or that his lips might kiss him as gently as his cigarettes, or that his eyes – those beautiful warm eyes – would look at him with longing, was what really made him weak.

 

~.-.~

 

For about an hour Cher took Louis through various questions and topics, going from his favourite candy to matters such as his political views. Louis answered sincerely – as much as wouldn’t like to admit it, he didn’t know enough about Zayn to try guessing what _his_ answers would have been and match them.

Many of Louis’s opinions differed quite from Zayn’s which definitely brought him down (to the point where Cher had to stop for a moment and say, “Don’t worry, you can’t be a perfect match.” Louis wanted to answer, “But I want us to be.” but he didn’t say anything – he just thanked her as an attempt of soothing from Cher Lloyd was quite a lot. Even though it was depressing to think about how bad you must be for her to resource to that.) But it also turned out they had quite a lot in common which brightened him up a bit.

Louis didn’t see Cher taking any notes or recording their conversation in any other way which made him doubt how much this would actually be useful to her and how much of it was her enjoying torturing him. He didn’t make a comment on it, which was quite hard and unusual for him, but he knew he had to be on his best behavior, try not to cross her, so that she would – how did Niall put it? – throw in a good word for him in front of Zayn.

“Okay, that’s all,” she announced at the end. Louis’s shoulders dropped and he sighed in relief – he hadn’t realized how tense he was.

“So,” Louis had never been so unsure in his life whether he should ask a question or not. But he chose to. “Did I do well?” _Am I good enough?_

Cher didn’t say anything; he studied her face in order to try to find some sign for what the answer might be. She wasn’t even looking at him – she was staring intensely in the space in front of the staircase just opposite them.

“Cher?” No answer. Was she paying _any_ attention to him _at all_?

Suddenly, there was a big smile on her face, and she rose from her seat with hands wide open.

“Why, hello, Mr I’m-gonna-be-on-time-this-time-I-swear!”

When Louis looked at who she was talking to, he almost gapped in surprise. He couldn’t believe his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Cher,” Zayn’s low and husky voice came somewhere from Cher’s curls which enveloped his face. “I was writing and just lost track of time.”

Maybe Niall was right – Louis did lose all of confidence and “swag” when Zayn was around. Right in this moment, he couldn’t even talk or think, let alone stand up and greet him.

“I hope you don’t mind I brought this guy with me today.”

“Who?” Zayn looked over Cher’s head and noticed Louis just know; he shrunk under his gaze, his arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Oh,” Zayn said. “I think I know you.”

Louis would’ve said yes if any sound could come out of his mouth. Fortunately, Cher was quick to answer instead of him, “You do Creative Writing together.”

“Oh, yeah.” Zayn said as if he had remembered but it wasn’t hard to see that he still had trouble to do it.

“It’s Lewis,” Cher explained.

“Lou–– Louis, actually,” he finally remembered how to speak English and corrected the girl.

“Yeah, yeah, I remember you now!” Zayn really did this time. “You wrote that short story with the kid that didn’t remember committing suicide, right?”

Louis just nodded.

“I liked it.”

Louis felt so happy about this simple statement, he was ready to fall on his knees and start kissing the ground Zayn walked on. While he was considering this as an actual and an appropriate expression of his gratitude and joy, he blurted out, “Why?”

Both Cher and Zayn stared back at him in surprise. His eyes widened – he didn’t expect to ask this no more than they did.

Zayn hesitated for a moment as if he had never thought about it and never really supposed he would be asked that. “Well… It was different.”

“In a good or in a bad way?” Louis wished he could bang his head against the wall right now. Why was he keeping on asking these questions? Why was he even talking?

“In a good way, definitely.” Zayn came closer, Louis keeping his eyes on him, and slowly said on the sofa next to Cher and Louis’s, leaving his bag on the floor (right next to Louis’s) and starting explaining why he actually liked Louis’s short story.

 

~.-.~

 

Louis didn’t care how much time they spent talking, as long as they were talking. Zayn was always so quiet during classes and discussions and Louis was curious to hear his opinion on… things – not only his short story but on e _verything_ – and not retold/guessed by Cher, but right from him. He had barely said a word, encouraging Zayn to speak, and speak, and speak. Louis couldn’t have enough of looking at him (the way his face would light up when he talked about the things he liked, and the way he furrowed his eyebrows when he talked about the things he didn’t like). Louis couldn’t have enough of listening to Zayn’s voice, his thick accent. The sound of it rang in Louis’s ears like a song – a seductive ballad, filled with beautiful words and expressions, simple in their construction but gorgeous in their meanings. It might have been just his imagination, but he could swear that Zayn spoke about literature the same way he created it.

At some point he announced that he had to leave because he had some work to do. In fact, he thought that he had come here, thinking that he and Cher would be doing research for their history project but he was pleased with the afternoon, even though he didn’t get his job done (Louis smiled stupidly at this).

“Are you coming on Wednesday?” he asked Louis just before leaving.

“What’s on Wednesday?”

Zayn looked at Cher, then back at him. “Sorry, I figured that if you’re dating Cher now…”

“We are not dating,” Cher and Louis answered in unison which puzzled Zayn even further.

“Okay. I figured that if the two of you are in the same clique now, you would…”

“Oh, we just met, Zayn,” Cher waved his assumption off. “But I was just about to invite him on Wednesday.”

“Oh, great then!” Zayn smiled. “See you on Wednesday, Louis.”

Cher waited a few minutes to hear the door of the bookstore closing before she turned to Louis.

“What’s on Wednesday?” he asked inpatient to know.

“The third stage of you meeting Zayn.”

“What?”

“You have just been invited to the party of the year, you idiot. At mine, on Wednesday, the annual Random party – I’m sure you’ve heard of it and have always wanted to go.”

Yeah, he had heard of it but hadn’t always wanted to go as he didn’t care about any of Cher’s, as Zayn had said, clique. This year, though, Zayn was going to be there, he suddenly realized – which made it quite a desirable event.

“OK. What was the second stage then?” Louis hadn’t realized up until now that he has, apparently, passed through it.

“It was meeting Zayn here, this afternoon.”

“Cher,” Louis sighed. “Could you, please, just explain the whole thing to me from the beginning, a.k.a. stage one, to up until know? I don’t think I can do the question-by-question deducing right now.”

Cher measured him from tip to toe, sighed with annoyance (as if everyone was supposed to read her mind and know what she’s planning) and went on as quickly as possible. “Stage one was me getting to know you and seeing if you and Zayn actually have something in common. I decided to do it as me and him, we already had an actual appointment in here. If I didn’t like you, I would’ve sent you away quite before he came in. But you turned out decent, so I kept you until Zayn came in. Which was stage two – you two meeting and seeing if you could actually engage in a conversation. Whether you pass to stage three or not, was entirely Zayn’s decision. He asked if you’re gonna be at the party on Wednesday, which in his language, means that he’ll actually be glad if you went.”

Louis stared at her, baffled. She had actually… _helped_ him?

He hugged her tightly, still in a surprise. “Thank you. Actually properly thank you, Cher. I would kiss you, if I though any of us would like that.”

“Hugging me is already enough,” she answered and pushed him away – she really wasn’t into such an expression of gratitude in public places, especially by a “lower-class people”. “And you’re welcome. But you’re on your own on the party, are we clear?”

“Yes, of course,” he nodded and added again, “Thank you.”

But Cher had already taken the way down the stairs.

“Can I bring someone with me?” he shouted after her – he had to return the favour to Niall, plus, he wouldn’t be able to do it on his own anyway.

“Yes, of course, whatever,” Cher waved goodbye at him.

For a while, Louis stood there unseated, in the middle of the reading area, with people passing by him. There was the smile of an unfortunate man who had just found happiness on his face and it refused to go down; his brain was slowly processing what had just happened. And as it happened so, his smile grew bigger and bigger.

He felt like shouting from happiness. “I managed to talk to Zayn Malik, _the_ Zayn Malik! He likes my short story. He wants me to be at his party.”

The world needed to know.

He dialed Niall.

 

~.-.~

 

Niall came with Harry at Louis’s the same evening. They let Louis behave like a teenage girl in love for a while, then called him down and insisted on him telling them everything without turning it into a love letter about how gorgeous and amazing Zayn was (which was quite hard, actually, as right in that moment, Louis saw everything through pink glasses).

“Good job, mate,” Niall tapped him on the shoulder.

“So what do we do now?” Harry asked while browsing through one of Louis’s books (Raymond Queneau’s _Exercises in Style_ *; he was barely playing with the pages without actually reading anything).

“Well, now it’s your turn!” Louis opened his arms towards Harry.

“Yeah?” he sounded worryingly uninterested.

“Yes.”

“So um, what do I have to do?” He finally lifted his eyes to look at Louis.

“Pretty much the same thing I told you you’ll have to do yesterday.”

“Which was…?”

Louis sighed. Harry was a pretty smart lad who just liked to play dumb and pretend to have the attention span of a fly. He wanted to tell him that now wasn’t the time for that but he knew that it would be pointless. Louis was sure that Harry remembered most of the things they talked about yesterday and that he, probably, already had a plan to help him.

“You have to make me more… attractive to Zayn.”

To be honest, Louis still wasn’t sure how he came up with this part of the plan. Well, at least how he gathered the courage to confess it. He thought that he was quite above average. He was smart and witty, he had some flirting skills (he’s ex-boyfriend used to say so, and so did Niall, as an observer), he was also quite handsome. Of course, Zayn was a bit out of his league, but Louis liked to pretend that he still could get him.

Until he came to write it all done and was ready to admit that _maybe_ he wasn’t as perfect as he thought and that _maybe_ he needed some help to impress Zayn.

“I already told you – just be yourself.” Yes, Harry had told him that. Yes, Louis still had the right to object.

“If that worked, I would’ve been dating him already.”

Harry sighed. “It didn’t work because you hadn’t even spoken to him until this afternoon.”

Louis cocked his head indignantly. “Watch your mouth, Harold.”

“I am.”

Niall looked first at the one, then at the other. Harry and Louis rarely ever had fights, and when they did it felt weird for the people around them.

He cleared his throat loudly. “Can we get back on the problem at hand?”

“Yes, of course. If Harold over there decides to help me, just as he has promised.”

“I _am_ helping you!” Harry exclaimed. “You just refuse to listen to me!”

“That’s bullshit.”

This time Niall had to physically stand between them. “Guys, calm down, will you?” Both of them nodded and the small Irish boy continued. “Harry, Louis will promise––”

“Hey!”

“I said Louis will promise to have this in mind. But you already promised to help him according to _his_ plan, and you have to keep this promise.”

“And none of your jokes!” Louis added.

“(You just love interrupting me, don’t you?) And none of your jokes. Do you both agree?”

It seemed to take them quite some time to agree to Niall’s suggestion, although it was quite simple. Louis personally didn’t believe in all the “Be Yourself” stuff but on the other hand, this afternoon, he had been nothing but himself when he met Zayn.

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Harry said after Louis.

When everyone finally calmed down, the three of them sat down. They stared at each other intensively for several seconds before Harry started, “So… My best flirting advice is…”

 

~.-.~

 

Louis didn’t literally take notes but he tried to remember every word Harry said. He was quite impressed with his mate’s transformation. From an easily distracted, slowly speaking average lad, he went to an educated, concentrated and an almost professional love adviser. Sometimes Louis felt very privileged to be able to see this kind of change in him. It meant that they – he and the rest of their friends – knew a side of him that most people chose to ignore.

The advice Harry gave him were pretty useful. He even shared several exercises to calm himself down before he meets or talks to Zayn – something Louis really, really needed. He commented on social etiquette, he went into a deep analysis of who might be at the party and how to behave around them; they also talked about Louis’s appearance which, according to both Harry and Niall, didn’t need any changes as it was only a house party.

Louis couldn’t help but notice how Harry managed to sneak in the idea that Louis should just be himself. He intentionally ignored him, pretending that he hadn’t gotten the hint.

They spent most of the evening like that – talking and discussing. Louis was amazed that they managed to go through pretty much everything only for several hours but he was quite pleased with it. At the end he asked Niall and Harry to come on the next day again, so that he could make sure he knew everything. (“This is not a History test, Louis.” “I know, but I just want to be calm that I’m fully prepared.” “OK, whatever.”)

 

~.-.~

 

Tuesday and Wednesday went pretty quickly as Louis spent hours and hours planning how he was going to make his way to Zayn, what he was going to say, and then plans suddenly turned into dreams and Louis’s imagination going wild about the wonderful, even though cheesy, moments the two of them could have together.

He had made an appointment with his friends near Cher’s house, so all of them could go together (he wasn’t sure whether Cher meant only one person or as many as he would like when she said he could bring someone with him). They weren’t late, which was the nicest thing they could do, to calm Louis down, so we has grateful to them, even though he didn’t share that. All of them looked quite casual and Louis felt like he had overdone it a bit (he changed his haircut three times before he settled on his regular fringes, only more feathery).

“Going now?” Niall asked after they exchanged some looks between their group as if they were a band of MI6 agents, setting off on an important mission.

“Going,” Louis nodded and headed towards Cher’s house, the others following him.

The closer they got to the house, the louder the music became. The number of people going around grew larger, too. Louis felt the air going out of his lungs, the need to throw up overwhelming him. He had never felt nervous around big crowds but this time it was different. He was anxious about all of this – more anxious than he had ever been.

His first instinct was to grab onto Niall’s wrist and squeeze it as hard as he could, until the blonde would protest and tell him to pull himself together. He refrained himself from doing so – he thought that if he did it, this would show how nervous he was and it would make the others more nervous, which would also make _him_ more nervous. That definitely wouldn’t end well.

They entered the house, Louis’s poker face on. No one greeted them but they didn’t bother – it was an _enormous_ house party and it was only normal that their hostesses wouldn’t be able to say hi to everyone. Not that she would try to – Louis suspected that she was already busy with someone in some of the rooms.

“Do you want any of us to stay with you, mate?” Niall shouted in his ear, getting a bit too much into the mood of the party.

“For God’s sake, Niall, I can hear you very well without you trying to make me deaf.”

“Still,” he dismissed Louis’s protest but kept his voice lower this time, “do you want of us to stay with you?”

“No offence, but I’d rather be on my own.” That was a lie – he would love them to be around and re-create his comfort zone outside of his actual comfort zone. “You know, it would be easier for Zayn to approach me if I’m not surrounded by people.”

“Aha.” Niall winked at him exaggeratedly.

“I mean, I’ll just hang around and look for him. You can go and have fun.”

Harry shrugged and was the first one to leave the group, quickly followed by apologetic Niall, and then the rest.

Finally, on his own Louis took a quick look around the room. It was quite brightly lit, crowded with people (whose chatter was just adding up to the loud music), many of which Louis hadn’t even seen in school, and already full of smoke. He wondered what he should do now. For some reason, he had thought that he would find Zayn straight away, but he hadn’t really taken in account how big Cher’s house was.

Maybe it was still worth looking around, ground floor at least. If he found him, he could just greet him, act a bit nervous (not that it was hard), and say something “Wow, I don’t really know anyone around here.” He would probably end up hanging around with Zayn that way.

Yes, that sounded like a good idea.

 

~.-.~

 

Louis couldn’t find Zayn. He wasn’t sure what he might stumble upon if he went on the first floor, so he decided just to wait around the kitchen, hoping that he’ll show up at some point.

He grabbed a drink and leaned on the counter, pretending that he was just casually sipping on his cider, as he was just about to head out of the room.

It hadn’t been long when a pretty blond girl with big blue eyes (honestly, she could easily by a female version of Niall) approached him.

“You seem uncomfortable here,” she noted. She seemed uncomfortable with the situation, too, but Louis didn’t say anything about it.

Instead, he replied, “Well, I was trying to look chill out. Not working, apparently.”

“No, you do look chill out. Just not comfortable.”

Louis tried to recall her name. He knew he had seen her around school, on Cher’s table. She had arrived only a couple of weeks ago and she had pretty quickly made her way to the popular table, although no one really knew how. She looked nice and always happy which wasn’t exactly the image the rest of the table had.

“You were Perrie, right?” that was the first name that came to mind to him when he tried to remember people talking about her.

“Yes,” she nodded. Then she furrowed her eyebrows. “Can’t remember your name, though. I’m sorry.”

“It’s Louis.”

“Louis, OK. I’ll try not to forget that.” There was no flirting in her voice, just a genuine desire to remember the name of someone she had just met. “I’m sorry. I’m trying to get to know as many people as possible but it’s so hard. Especially when most of you know each other since kinder garden.”

“Well, yeah, it might be,” Louis admitted. He _did_ know most of the people for so long but he had never been friends with many of them. He kind of understood the girl. “But most of the people here are pretty nice.” This wasn’t exactly true but he felt that the girl needed a bit of soothing, something to calm her anxiety down. Louis wished there was someone to do the same for him right now.

“Yeah, they seem so. Cher was quite nice to me, inviting me to her party and to her table on the first day of school. And then, Zayn, helping me with homework…”

“Zayn?” Louis felt like he had just swallowed a knife.

“Yes. This nice Pakistani boy?”

Louis nodded.

Zayn was helping her with her homework. This couldn’t be good. He could see that the girl didn’t really mean it as “marking her territory” or something like that – she didn’t even seem to have _any_ schemes behind all of this – and still, Louis couldn’t help but feel threatened by her, jealous of her. Threatened because this beautiful, sweet girl could win anyone’s heart – Louis himself couldn’t dislike her, although right now he really wanted to. Jealous because she had been here for several weeks but she had already spent more time with Zayn than Louis had ever hoped to.

“It’s so sweet of him,” she continued.

“It’s nice, yes,” was all Louis could answer, trying to keep his voice even. Not very successfully, but thanks to the loud music, Perrie couldn’t notice that.

“Yes, I mean, he could’ve easily said no…”

Louis was sure that Perrie wasn’t doing it on purpose – she was just trying to make a conversation because, maybe, she liked talking to him so far, or just talking to people in general, or that was what she did when she was nervous. Problem was Louis couldn’t really take it anymore. Suddenly, he started feeling sick, the world closing in on him. He found himself in desperate need of air.

A panic attack. He was having a proper panic attack because a girl just told him she had spent several evenings doing homework with Zayn.

He tried to calm himself down, he tried to concentrate on Perrie’s babbling, instead of his own thoughts, then he tried to think of nothing at all.

None of these worked, he still couldn’t breathe.

“Excuse me, I’m not feeling well,” he said and stormed out of the kitchen.

 

~.-.~

He wasn’t sure how, but he ended up on the roof. He was just looking for a quiet and breezy place without many people around. Louis didn’t know his way around Cher’s house so yes, it was a little miracle to make it to a place like its roof.

Well, he was there anyway – he might as well try to calm himself down.

Louis took a deep breath, counted to ten, and sat down, near the window that he had just come from.

This was bad. This whole situation was bad. He had just freaked out over the fact that Zayn was helping a girl with her homework when said her had implied nothing more than that it was nice of him to do that. Louis knew that if a new-girl-in-town that was sweet and obviously nervous like Perrie came to him and asked him about help, he would say yes. It wasn’t that weird or uncommon.

He could’ve done the same as her, had he worked up the confidence to speak to Zayn.

And that was what worried him the most. He could literally picture himself doing it but at the same time he knew he wouldn’t – he just couldn’t function in the right way around Zayn.

This combined with his downright envy and his overall anxiousness of not being good enough or lucky enough drove him insane.

He groaned in frustration.

Louis heard sudden noises coming from the window. His head snapped right in that direction, for some reason he felt in danger (actually, it was undeniably the _American Horror Story_ episode he had watched the same morning combined with his imagination).

He couldn’t believe his luck when Zayn’s pretty face and ridiculous quiff came out of the window.**

When he saw Louis’s expression of pure surprise, he said, “I’m sorry.” He stared back at him. Well, Zayn seemed to be just as surprised as Louis. “Is it OK, or…?” He lifted a cigarette in his fingers.

Smoke. He was here to smoke. It took Louis quite some time of awkward silence to realize that before he answered, “Um… uh… oh… Yes. Yes, it’s alright.”

“Thank you,” Zayn nodded and ducked out of the house onto the roof.

He sat down on the other side of the window, hiding almost completely from Louis’s sight. This left the other boy disappointed – he knew he could stare at Zayn all day long – but at the same time he was grateful as he saved him from the embarrassment of staring _too long_.

Louis wanted to say something and break the uncomfortable silence (well, uncomfortable for him, Zayn seemed pretty chilled smoking his cigarette) but he just didn’t know what. All of the things that came to mind to him, seemed either stupid, or completely inappropriate, or from his list of Top 10 Things We Don’t Talk About In Public. He tried to peek at Zayn and guess what he’s thinking, if he was in the mood to talk at all. But he couldn’t without leaning too far down and making his attempts quite obvious.

He knew this was a rare opportunity for him but he was seriously starting to wonder if he could use it at all if they continued sitting like this.

“You want a smoke?” Zayn extended his hand towards Louis, holding out his pack of cigarettes to him. Louis finally had a good excuse to lean forward. He looked at the small box awkwardly. For a moment he wondered whether he should accept or not – he wanted to play a bad boy so much but at the same time he knew that as someone who had never smoked in his life, he would only make a fool of himself, chocking on the smoke.

“No. Thank you,” he replied. “I don’t smoke.”

“Well, here’s a good life choice,” Zayn commented on that. “I wish I hand’s started either.”

“Why don’t you quit?” The Louis blurting out questions without even thinking about it struck again. The other one wanted to throw himself from the roof as he saw this as an insensible thing to ask.

Zayn, though, seemed pretty comfortable with it. “It’s not that easy to be honest,” he confessed. “I really hate how I need the next one when I’m stressed.”

“You seem so calm,” Louis commented, hoping that he didn’t sound like an actual stalker.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Zayn laughed lightly. Louis smiled at the sound of it. “Because I’m always stressed on the inside.”

“Haven’t you tried yoga or something?”

“Yoga?” Zayn’s hand froze midair, incredulous look on his face, with the nicest and most un-hostile smirk.

“Well, yeah. It’s like the new celebrity thing, so everyone’s doing it,” Louis shrugged. “I heard it works.”

The two of them shared a look (this might have been the first time but Louis was feeling so well right at this moment, so he didn’t notice) and burst out laughing.

“I just imagined myself in yoga pants,” Zayn was laughing, covering his eyes with his hand.

Now Louis imagined Zayn in yoga pants, too, and felt heat spread all over his body. He was probably blushing but this wasn’t his main concern.

OK, he actually needed some nice yoga exercises at this moment.

“I think it would go well with you bad boy look,” Louis’s voice was raspy, giving away what the image of certain parts of Zayn’s body in yoga pants was going to him.

“Oh, no, man. I don’t have that.”

“Well, yes, you do actually. I mean, the leather jackets, and the black jeans, and that rebellious expression of “OK, whatever, never mind”. You are quite the grunge bad boy.”

Louis was sorry he said that as soon as it came out of his mind. He didn’t want to make Zayn feel put in a certain stereotype.

“I’ll have to write this down for my twitter account,” he noted instead, smiling.

“You could.”

“Yeah, it would be a nice change from Bradford Bad Boi.” The two of them laughed again – maybe they were getting used to each other’s presence.

In about a minute, Zayn finished his cigarette. “I’m going back in,” he said. “I promised Cher to be around. But you can stay here, I guess, it will be OK.”

Louis nodded. He knew that he and Zayn would part ways even if he went inside with him. So he might as well stay here and think about the time they’ve just spent together.

Zayn tried to push the window but it didn’t move. “What the fuck?” He pushed harder and harder, until he was practically just banging on the window.

“What’s going on?” Louis asked with concern.

“The window won’t open,” he paused. “I think someone accidently locked us out.”

Louis’s eyes widened. “What?!”

“They must’ve not heard us.” He peeked through the window. “No, there’s no one inside.”

“Oh my God!” Louis exclaimed. “Do you think we should shout for help?”

“I don’t think they’ll hear us – with all the music.”

Louis looked around. “What about another roof window? I’m sure Cher’s house must have another one.”

Zayn shook his head. “It doesn’t. All of them are always locked.”

“Well, that’s creepy,” Louis commented. “Do you have your phone with you?” He checked his own. “Mine’s dead.”

“No. I left it on the inside.”

“OK. What about breaking the window then?” he asked. “Like in the movies.”

“I don’t think that it will work, though. None of us are Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

Louis tried to think of a way out of this, which didn’t require them sitting on the roof top for the rest of the night – or until someone came looking for them. He went closer to the edge; and idea was starting to form in his head. The building itself wasn’t that high – not many suburban English houses were. There were quite a lot of bushes under the place where they stood. Fortunately, they seemed to still be green and have lots of leaves.

“Zayn,” Louis said thoughtfully. “How about jumping? We can make it, it won’t hurt that much. Actually,” he turned towards him, “it might even be fun.”

By the look of Zayn’s face, it wouldn’t be fun. At least not for him. He had curled on the roof, frozen wide-eyed.

“Zayn,” Louis asked softly, concerned. “Are you OK?”

He nodded. Then, a second later, he shook his head.

Louis came closer. “What is it?”

Zayn didn’t answer; he just shook his head again.

It didn’t take much time for Louis to figure it out. He asked very slowly, “Zayn, are you afraid of heights?”

Zayn hesitate for a moment and then nodded.

Louis sighed. “We can stay here then. I’ll keep you company.”

For his surprise, Zayn shook his head again. “I- I can’t,” he said. “I can’t stop thinking about the height.”

Louis blinked. “But you came here by yourself.”

“I didn’t think about it. It wasn’t really a factor when I couldn’t really see the edge.”

“But now I’ve pointed it out and…”

“And I can’t stop thinking about it.”

Louis put his hand gently over Zayn’s knee – the other boy didn’t push him away. He was too scared, Louis realized. It was the first time he didn’t think about him as the confident, cool guy; he saw him as a full-blooded person with a fear that overwhelmed him just like everybody else. He needed a friend right now; Louis was willing to be that for him.

“You’re afraid of the fall, Zayn, aren’t you?”

“Yes, I guess.”

“But what about the jumping?” Zayn’s eyes widened even more. “It’s not a fall; it’s a conscious decision to go down from the top. It’s different. And you know it won’t hurt you.”

“I––”

“ _I_ promise it won’t hurt you; I’ll make sure of it.”

Zayn hesitated for several moments. He squeezed his eyes and finally nodded.

Louis extended his hand towards him and helped him get up. For his surprise, Zayn didn’t let go of his hand even when he was already up. Instead, he squeezed it even harder. Louis smiled slightly – he liked the feeling of taking care of Zayn.

“It’s just a small jump, don’t worry,” he tried to calm him down. “I can jump first if you want to see it will be okay.”

“No, don’t.” It was a simple phrase but full of so many unsaid things. _I’d rather we did it together. I can’t do it alone._

Louis let Zayn nearer to the edge. Now that he was actually standing there, he wasn’t so sure of his decision. What if they got hurt? What if one of them broke something? What if something even worse happened?

_“Calm yourself down,”_ he said to himself; if he freaked out now, Zayn would also chicken out of it. What mattered now was that he didn’t want to stay there anymore and, to be honest, neither did Louis.

He smiled. He already had an amazing memory to share with Zayn.

 

> _We are standing on an edge and there’s no water beneath us._

“You ready, bad boy?” Louis said, trying to cheer Zayn up. A short story was already forming in his head.

 

> _You are scared. I am too._
> 
> _We have to jump, but neither one of us wants to do it. But what else are we supposed to do? Neither one of us wants to stay here either._
> 
> _Although, I could spend an eternity standing on a small piece of land with you; until the last star bursts into a supernova or simply fades away; until the empty space underneath disappears out of existence and we are not sure whether we exist or not._
> 
> _But it’s just a small fall. A small jump._
> 
> _Not into water – like we did or we would do on a waterfall in a tiny island in the ocean._
> 
> _I talk you into it._
> 
> _Because, I say, box shrub branches aren’t that different from water. You can still feel your body hitting it and it’s hard and strange. But you can still feel its embrace. And you know that it won’t hurt you._
> 
> _I don’t know why I’m saying this – I have never jumped into box shrubs or into waterfalls._
> 
> _But I talk you into it and we jump._

Next thing Louis knew, they were in the bushes, Zayn on top of him, laughing uncontrollably. It hadn’t hurt at all – or maybe it did but the adrenaline was still pumping in their veins and they just couldn’t tell yet.

“I can’t believe we did it,” Zayn barely managed a sentence between his laughs. “Oh my God.”

“Yeah, I know,” Louis answered and only then did he realize that Zayn was lying on top of him.

Louis felt a new wave of heat spreading through his body. To be honest, he was extremely attracted to Zayn but even in his wildest dreams he hadn’t imagined the two of them so close together so fast.

He froze and stared at Zayn. Zayn stared back.

Louis wondered if he felt the same way he did. Well, he probably wasn’t completely in love with him, but he Louis couldn’t help but ask himself if Zayn was somehow attracted to him.

“Lou?” a familiar voice came from somewhere over them. It took some time for Louis to realize it was Niall.

“Oh shit,” Zayn mumbled under his breath and jumped quickly of Louis. He helped the other boy get up, too, only to stare into a very surprised Niall.

“I’m sorry,” the small Irish boy said. “I can wait for you inside.”

“No, stay,” it was Zayn who spoke first. “I– Louis will explain what happened.” He headed out of the bushes, past Niall, but not before turning back to Louis and saying, “See you around, I guess.”

When he left the two of them alone, Niall noted, “You seem to be doing pretty well, Louis.”

“Niall.”

“Yeah?”

“Did you hear him? He remembered my name.”

 

~.-.~

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *If you haven’t read it, go do it. That’s the funniest shit ever.
> 
> **This is undeniably a plot twist none of us expected. Sorry you have to put up with my immature underline A/N.


End file.
